Monday, April 16, 2012

all the things

{via}


As an avid reader of A Practical Wedding, I have come across the phrase: 'Wanting/needing ALL THE THINGS' in regard to the wedding industry often enough.
It means that when you start planning a wedding, people will inevitably tell you all the things you 'need', or, the industry tells you that your wedding won't be 'perfect' unless you have 'all the things' - eg. the mason jars, the perfect makeup, the expensive flowers, the three tiered cupcake tree with custom designed icing decorations that taste like spring.
You know what I mean.
Looking at buying a house has brought out a new breed of 'all the things', and it isn't necessarily an industry pressure the way that planning a wedding is, but I am feeling a new sense of stress because I need all the things.

We saw a house on Saturday, and it's great as it is. You can move in and all you'd need to do was floor the bedrooms (though it's not like they don't have a floor, it's just not a 'real floor). The kitchen is huge, the bathroom is big, there's a yard up the back ready for Mallei, there's a huge drive and a carport. It's a great house, even though the kitchen is dated and too 'country' for me and the stove is electric hotplates (bleurg, ugh), and the bathroom is 1980s-salmon-pink... it works, it's fine.

...

But...

I want all the things.
I want a new kitchen, right? Gas stove, yes please. Beautiful beautiful island with wood benchtops and an  impractical place for recipe books...
I want to fix the bathroom, make it more pretty.
I want the floors to be lovely.
(Keep in mind, too, that we haven't even put an offer in on the house yet- it's not ours).
I want to plant Japanese maples out the front.
I want to buy bar stools, and armchairs, and a new couch, and a new dining table, and new chairs because mine are from 1991 or so.
I want RUGS.
I want to have a brilliant, functional vegetable garden out the back, with a little mini fruit tree orchard, and a chook pen and chickens with eggs.
I want to sell my car for a little diesel car so that it's more economical to drive the longer distance to work and back.
I want bird feeders, wind-chimes and herbs hanging from the front balcony.
I want more artwork.
I want to have cool, unusual and interesting recycled timber furniture.

So... not a long list, right.

All the damn things.
And I need to stop feeling so stressed about having all the stupid things right now. Floors? Probably a priority in that house. Everything else? Couches are still sittable. Table still has legs, chairs? They're pretty stained and fur-covered, but they work for now... These things will come, when they come. This needs to my mantra.
First thing's first: get a house. Everything else will come in time. And if it doesn't, at least we'll have a place to call our own, with room to move, and places to put plants in the ground because we'll be there for a while. And walls that we can put hooks in, because it won't be carefully documented with the threat of a reduced bond looming.
And that will be lovely.

No comments:

Post a Comment